by Balwant Gargi
In a low mud hut, a group of peasants sat and discussed how they could send word to all the villages about their urgent Kisan Sabha (Peasants Union) meeting.
Suddenly, a voice startled them. "Please give me your message. I'll take it". He was a slim tough-looking lad of seventeen.
"To which village?" they asked."To all the villages." He replied.
"All the villages? Do you know what it means? The meeting is to be held tomorrow."
"I know that", he replied . "There are just ten or twelve villages. It can't be more than sixty miles. I'll cover it within a few hours."
The looked at him. His thick lips parted like furrows in a freshly-ploughed field. Over them spread a short bluish down, merging into his wisky beard. He had a long neck, thin belly, tattooed peacocks on his sweaty thighs. How on earth could he do sixty miles in a few hours?
Inder Singh, an old peasant with a gnarled beard said, "This is Boota… from Bhagoo village. Don't you know he can run a hundred miles at a stretch?"
"A hundred miles?"
"Yes. When he runs, he leaves the storm wind behind".
"Boota," continued Inder Singh, "is from my village. His father died when he was only two. His mother raised her son in great hardship".
His childhood was spent chasing rabbits and dogs. He would run after them in the field and he became so agile that he could chase a rabbit, trap it, let it go and catch it again. A rabbit can run four miles, a jackel about eight, a horse at the most forty and the fastest camel cannot go more than fifty miles. But Boota could run a hundred miles.
"How long does it take you to cover that much?" an old peasant asked.
"Twelve hours", replied Boota. "A horse can run faster than me, but it cannot run a hundred miles at a stretch. If you doubt my statement, give all the papers to me and I'll deliver them by tomorrow."
Inder Singh handed Boota the letters, told him the names of the villages with full instructions.
The following day, all the members of the Kisan Sabha assembled at the appointed time for the meeting.
After the meeting, the local personalities met Boota. A lawyer, a retired headmaster who was an old athlete, a Sub-judge and a few others. They felt grieved that such a wonder was not known beyond his village.
"If Boota has a chance to go to London and run a race, he will make his little village shine on the map of the world", declared the headmaster.
"Out country is full of wonders," added Kumar Sain. "We have great wrestlers and hunters but they waste their talent and die unknown".
"If Boota can run a hundred miles, no power on earth can stop him from attaining world fame", concluded the judge.
An aged military havaledar said, "His Highness the Maharaja of Patiala is very fond of games and sports. If somehow we can get this news to the ears of His Highness, he will surely send Boota to an international athletic meet".
A cunning, cross-eyed petition writer said, "Has anyone tested if Boota can really run a hundred miles?"
A bald shop-keeper looked at Boota and remarked, "A peasant's sense of distance is very vague. If this man runs as much as thirty miles, he will believe he has run a hundred".
"Why not first arrange his race in our town", suggested the headmaster, "Perhaps some funds can be collected to help him. The distance around the big common meadow is about 440 yards. If Boota completes four hundred rounds of this meadow, it will mean one hundred miles. All of us shall watch and enjoy it. After this we can plan his future."
Everybody was thrilled by this proposal.
The headmaster asked Boota if he would like to run in the big meadow. Boota cheerfully said, "Yes".
The village drummer announced the news, "Listen folks! On Sunday morning at seven o'clock, Boota of the Bhagoo village will run a hundred-mile race. All the people of the town are requested to visit the common meadow and watch this great event! Welcome All!"
Early on Sunday, people gathered in the common. Boota was wearing khaddar (home spun cotton) shorts and a flame-coloured kerchief tied around his black hair rolled up on the top of his head. The peon sat on one side to count the rounds. At seven, the retired headmaster, acting as referee, whistled and Boota started his solitary race.
People continued coming till eight o'clock. The headmaster sat watching Boota going round and round the meadow with the same speed, in the same posture, and in the same machine-like rhythm. Women came flouncing their skirts and sat gossiping, watching Boota spinning round and round.
At noon, Boota stopped, drank a jug of milk, changed his drenched shorts, combed his hair, tied his kerchief around it and again started running. By sunset, he completed four hundred rounds of the meadow, half an hour before his scheduled time. The sunrays tinged Boota's hair, which looked like glowing feathers. His chest heaved and on his bronze body sweat streamed.
The crowd cheered him. Two people carried him on their shoulders. The news hummed through the village. Boota said, "It is God's will. His strength runs in my bones. That's why I could run a hundred miles. If I go to London, I am sure I’ll be the champion".
The vernacular press splashed the news; calls made to send Boota to Patiala for an audience with His Highness.
The next day, Boota's mother came form the village. She was about sixty, a stout peasant woman. She had come to take Boota back. People tried to convince her that a great future awaited Boota, but she would not listen. "I can't leave my son to the town-folk", she hissed, "I am an old widow and cannot look after the farm. Who will drive away jackals and rabbits from the farm? The old dog is dead. I am left with no on but my son. I can't live without Boota."
"Old mother, your son is a world champion. You have tied him to your skirt. His place is not a little village, but a city. The world must know about him. You are ruining his career. Don't be foolish. Leave him with us", the town folk implored.
She listened with distrust and repeated, "I can't live without my son. I must take him back with me".
But when the Sub-judge said that an audience with His Royal Highness was being arranged, she agreed.
"Don't bother, mother," said Boota. "Soon I shall go across the seven seas and run a hundred miles race in London and the whole world will know me. Then we shall be rich and I will come back to the village with a lot of money. Let me have the chance to go to London".
The following day, she went back to the village, leaving her son.
Boota stayed in the out house of the Sub- judge. The judge and his friends played cards all afternoon and Boota sat in the verandah. Two letters were sent to Patiala, one to the Officer of Sports and one to the Private Secretary of the Maharaja. Weeks passed. To keep busy, Boota would run to the Post Office to bring mail to the judge, flash to the market to fetch betel leaves and cigarettes for the judge and do odd little errands.
One day he said, "Sir, I know a man who was once in the court of the Maharaja of Patiala but now he is staying at Faridkot. He knows the Maharaja very well. If I go to him, he can easily produce me before the Maharaja."
Boota left for Faridkot in search of that man. A long chain of references ultimately led Boota to the aide-de-camp of the Maharaja, who promised to arrange an audience with His Highness.
Meanwhile big events intervened. The country was partitioned. Princely states were being integrated in the Indian Republic. Sardar Patel, the Deputy Prime Minister was touring the country, negotiating with the Princes.
In Patiala, there was a big procession. Sardar Patel and the Maharaja sat side by side in a silver carriage drawn by two black horses. People lined the streets. In the crowd Boota watched the royal carriage moving behind the military band. Inder Singh had also come to see the festivity.
He asked Boota about his interview with the Maharaja. Boota replied patiently, "Just now the Maharaja is busy with important affairs of the State. Soon he will have time to see me.
Boota kept waiting for his interview. Every time there was some urgent State matter occupying the attention of the Maharaja. The aide-de-camp asked Boota if he would like to have a job in Patiala instead of going back and forth to his village, wasting time and incurring expenses. At the first opportunity, he would be granted an interview and sent to the Olympics. This appealed to Boota and he joined as a watchman in the Royal kitchen. His pay was like a stipend to him as he had little to do but to sit on a small stool.
Once his mother came to take him back to her village. But Boota who understood the delays and red-tape asked her to return, assuring her that all their troubles would end as soon as he got a chance to go to London. He gave the old woman his salary of the last three months. She tied it in the fold of her skirt and went back to the village.
Boota stuck to his job. Often he would feel tired of sitting on the stool. Unused to sedentary life, he would shoot off to the bazaar or to the market at the least pretext and wander about. Once he was absent from his duty the whole day. The matter was reported to the manager of the household and then to higher authorities. Boota was summoned and sharply rebuked and threatened that if he ever left his post again, he would be summarily dismissed. If that happened, there would be no possibility of his ever going to the Olympics.
It frightened Boota. He promised to become more responsible. After the warning he became very punctual and cautious.
A year later, Inder Singh went to Patiala to appear as a witness in a case. He was standing on a road, waiting for some conveyance, when he saw a cycle rickshaw. He recognized Boota sitting in it. He was wearing neat Khaki shorts and fine leather shoes. His shirt and turban were new. He greeted Inder Singh with a smile and the rickshaw halted. His old mother was with him.
"How are you, Boota?" he asked.
"By God's grace and your kindness I am quite well", he replied. "His Highness was away at Chail, his summer palace. As soon as he comes back, I will be granted an interview. My name is at the top of the list. I hear an athletic team is going to London in the autumn. I hope to be selected."
Inder Singh asked why he was sitting in a rickshaw. The old woman moaned, "My Boota was a fee bird. Sitting on a stool has been hard on him. Blood has curdled in his thighs and calves. Look, his knees are swollen. Oh, my God!"
She beat her breast with her fists and wailed, "Now I am taking him to the hospital to have his knees treated."
Inder Singh looked at Boota. His knees looked puffy. Inder Singh's heart sank seeing Boota in that condition.
Boota looked at Inder Singh with his animal eyes shining. His lips opened like a freshly ploughed furrow and he said, "The doctor is treating me with electric instruments. In a week my knees will be alright and I shall be able to run. Then Sir, I'll go to London and run a hundred miles race."
Inder Singh looked at his face brightened with hope like a mirage leading him from desert to desert and now like a tired deer had fallen hoping to reach the water gleaming on the horizon.

Translated by the author

After doing master's degree in English literature from FC College Lahore, Balwant Gargi(b 1920-Bathinda, Punjab) started writing in his mother-tongue at the behest of Tagore, for radio and theatre. He moved to Delhi after 1947. His plays have been staged in Moscow, Germany, Poland, America and Scotland. He taught at the University of Washington and directed classical Sanskrit plays there in the mid-1960s. In 1962 he was given the Sahitya Akademi award and in December 1999, the President of India honoured him with the Sangeet Natak (Music and Theatre) prize. He established the department of Indian theatre at Panjab University Chandigarh in the late 1960s. Now he lives with his actor son in Bombay in poor health.